Re: Related issue - patient

[Kent Lambert <lambert@allegheny.edu>]

BLHamrick@aol.com wrote:
> It
> is still quite expensive to send someone out to a landfill,  especially when
> some are over a hundred miles from the nearest inspection office, to say,
> "yup, that's Tc-99m."  Far better if this waste never made it to the public
> landfill, as legally it should not.

It is far cheaper to send someone out to the landfill than it is to keep
these patient's in-house until they are "indistinguishable from
background."

NRC regulations (I can't talk about CA regs) implicitly permit
radioactive waste in the public landfills.  Patients may be released
from confinement based on specific criteria (which changes later this
week).  So I can administer 29 mCi of I-131 (or other isotope such as
Tc-99m) and release the patient.  Once the patient is released, he/she
is no longer under the licensee's control.  So, the patient is
incontinent.  Disposable products are used to clean up.  Cleaning
materials are placed in the trash ...  What regulation has been
violated?

Kent Lambert
lambert@allegheny.edu